The lush wet of spring has given over to this parched summer. Mountains are burning, lending neon to sunsets. Mars approaches; astronomers arrange their telescopes. On the other side of the globe, cities are on fire.

August

the sky is pale with its own heat
brushing my hair in the morning
I think of you

Is there ever clarity, I wonder – for more than a moment, I mean – that moment of seeing a whale blow – or the blue heron – or being totally at play with a child – or the moment in a dream when a Shaman cushions you in air – Is there clarity beyond these moments?

caught in pain’s blunt teeth – some mammoth herbivore has caught me up by mistake

walking with my dogs
in the ominous night –
smoke-smudged moon

Philip visits from Juneau

and Mariah graduates!

I’m too young to be old
but illness has god's ear
and better oratorical skills

I stop to fill up the car, and the gas station guy spots the moss growing on the bumpers. He cannot get over it, calls his buddies out to see it: “She’s got moss growing on her car!” He points to a motorcycle at the next pump, tells me that guy is part of some “ride” where bikers go as far as fast as they can – “He expects to be in New Orleans tonight”. The bike has a little turtle fetish attached to the gear shift.

What concerns me: human pain – my pain – and its compensations.

a tree full of sparrows, & all of them talking at once

the dead spruce
leafed by crows

The hours I slide through each morning in my darkened bedroom, in and out of dreams – all this space, so much more than most people would ever want – all this space necessary for me to make ‘room’ for even a single poem to breathe in. And I have this space, and today – a warm, soft, breathable day – I am grateful for it.

From a hymn Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart:

I ask no dreams, no prophet ecstasies,
no sudden rending of the veil of clay,
no angel visitant, no opening skies:
but take the dimness of my soul away.

Charles Cummings: “A life of prayer is a life of beginning all over again.”
– as is a life of writing. Perhaps a life of writing is a life of prayer –